The past week, I’ve gotten a few interesting comments, along the lines of “this post says nothing about the actual episode, what an informative anime blog” (with the last part being obvious sarcasm), and they got me thinking. It’s not the first part that got me (heck, I’m all for constructive criticism), but rather the assumption that every anime blog should have a summary for each single post. I’ve personally never seen Star Crossed as an episode summary blog. It’s more that I write about whatever catches my interest after watching an episode. Depending on my mood, I randomly summarize a bit and add a few thoughts on the episode in question. But are there more people who feel that I should put more focus on summaries?

Having said that though, I do realize how my past posts on Crystal Blaze have been mostly thoughts and hardly any sentence on what happened. I’ve been carried away by the many surprising good points of this series. So, for variety’s sake, here is a summary of the episode. And boy, was it a great one. :)

The episode starts where the previous episode left off: the swat team, who was assigned to put a stop on Kitou’s research, is inside the closed space where Kitou and Kirie unleash a glass woman upon them. This woman quickly slaughters the entire squadron, as bullets seem to not work on her. Kitou explains that with the help of a special ring, the glass woman knows who she should attack and who she should leave alone.

When everyone in the chamber has died, the woman goes after the rest of the swat team, who she defeats easily. Very soon, more glass women come and help her. Meanwhile in the same underground facility, JJ and Sophia witness this bloodbath, as Sophia tapes it, and they’re astounded at the capabilities of the glass women. Because the security is busy with the swat-team, they can move around quite freely and they end up in what looks like the main database. There they find out that Kitou has been using live women for his research, and he’s turned them into experimental subjects.

JJ tries to call the chief of police, though there’s no connection. While he’s rambling on ethical issues, Sophia tries to copy the data she’s found for evidence. Meanwhile back at the glass women: they suddenly freeze and shatter. Kitou’s research has improved, though the HW-series is still imperfect. Kirie then suggests using the BW-series from now on (I’m wondering: what does the “B” stand for? Bio-weapon, or something?). Kitou, however, is still interested in the experiment, mainly because of what a success HW9 turned out to be, which is why he wants to retrieve her: in order to figure out why she’s special. (does he know that she’s about to die anyway?)

Kirie and the rest of security then go on and clean up the rest of the swat-team that wasn’t killed by the glass maidens, while JJ and Sophia are discovered by a random guard that passed by. They manage to make it towards the stairs that lead to the exit, and at that point I guess that JJ wants to hold off the guards so that Sophia escapes. Sophia runs up the stairs and a number of gunshots sound, but we have no freaking idea what happened back then.

Meanwhile, outisde the base, the three members of the swat-team that left behind fail to make any contact to their comrades. Akira meanwhile is still spying on them, and listening to their communications. It’s then that the few survivors manage to make it back outside and report. Akira then tells this to Shu, as the chief of police enters his room. Shu then tells him about what his little nephew and Sofia have been doing, and is surprised how the chief of police didn’t know that.

As Sophia reaches the door to the exit, she realizes that it’s shut and that she can’t get out. She then calls Shu for help. She tells him where she is, but before they can finish the call, one of the guards discovers her and destroys her phone. The chief of police then wants to come along with Shu because of JJ, but Shu tells him, as well as Manami and Ayaka to remain where they are. Meanwhile, Kitou and Kirie inject Sophia with the strange liquid that turns you into glass.

Ayaka meanwhile finds it strange that all sites about the glass women have gone down. Sara meanwhile continues to be troubled by her left arm changing to glass. When Shu arrives at the hidden base Akira waits for him and both of them rush to the entrance, where they find a naked Sophia with one glass arm, and they take her to Doc as quickly as possible. It’s a bit strange that Kitou would just “let” Sophia escape, and indeed: she also received a bracelet when she was injected, and in this bracelet there’s a transmitter.

The strange thing is that Shu is just fine touching Sophia, and doesn’t get burned. The others arrive and are shocked at the glass arm, especially Sara, and the episode ends.

Kitou’s getting pretty decent for a pure villain. Often, the villains that get fleshed out are somehow misunderstood. While this is nice to watch, it’s also good to see someone who really doesn’t have any ethical values and is more than just a stereotype that’s used to keep the story going. He himself is a mad scientist, obsessed by his creations. The guy is much better than most other villains, who only sit in a chair and do nothing but look evil.

Personally, I have never been able to push myself to write summaries, as they take lots of time to do. In that respect, I do think that there is value to an episode summary, but I have never read them myself. Either I’m interested in the show and watch it without spoiling myself, or I’m not interested and wouldn’t either watch or read about it.
From discussions in the past, I am pretty positive there are lots of people who think so.

Therefore, I think you really are doing a great job with your blogging style and I hope you won’t change it unless you think summary writing is lots of fun.

I don’t read the summaries, why should i? It is more fun to watch the anime. I do however value the thoughts and ideas that a blogger writtes down. Although a short summary is nice i don’t see why there is any need for a huge essay outlining every scene. I have no idea why there are so many people that want these. If someone knows why, I would like to know it.

I like your blog the way it is.
You don’t need to give a summary of every single episode (there are enough blogs who do that). If I want to know what happens through an episode, then I watch it.

But I love your blog because I like to read yout personal thoughs about the animeseries. There aren’t much people whit an opinion similiar to yours. And there aren’t many guys blogging not-mainstream series like Kaiba (is there at least one other blog with that show? Oo). So I like to go here and read what you think about an episode. And in the most cases, it’s the same what I think, and I like that ^^

Agree with others that there’s no obligation to write a summary. Depends a lot on the target audience. If you assume that most people reading a blog entry have already watched the episode, then a summary is really pointless, after all.

On the other side of the coin, I’ll say that I *do* find summaries helpful when the entry is for a raw episode, since I’ll usually watch the raws but not necessarily understand everything going on… but I can usually get enough to understand the comments, whether there’s a summary or not, so they’re certainly not vital.

There’s nothing more annoying than looking around blogs to find a particular episode and finding a huge page of pictures and a long-winded summary, followed by a small paragraph of comments. It’s just…pointless really.

I don’t need a 50 page summary on every episode, but I would appreciate if the blogger can use specific examples in the episode to reinforce the point he’s trying to make.

For example, if you say the characterization is great, then what is it about the episode that made you think that? Things like that would be helpful to me so I can at least get a sense of what’s been happening in the story.

I enjoy your blog. Being recent anime fan and like many readers of your blog, I watch anime that are less mainstream. Those anime have no coverage elsewhere. A small paragraph of summery could benefit those who want to know what the anime is about.

To quickly skip over your thoughts on the actual episode (I’m several eps behind on ‘Crystal Blaze’), I appreciate that you’re giving your thoughts on the series and episodes you like. They’re interesting to read, especially coming from someone who seems to have a large knowledge of anime.

I haven’t even seen an episode of Crystal Blaze (although I plan to once the Summer Season begins), and yet I had to comment about this.

I’ve always liked your blog the way it is. What got me hooked onto it in the first place was your wonderful entries on Higurashi. It was your thoughts and opinions (theorys too) that I liked; seeing a big summary of a Higurashi episode would just ruin it. Usually you don’t really provide a big summary unless you’re really enjoying what you’re watching (Porfy and I think Shion no Ou comes into mind).

I haven’t been reading the Crystal Blaze entries, so I didn’t know that you were just providing thoughts, because I’ve seen brief summaries on the rest of your entries. You can tell from the above comments that we enjoy your style of blogging. Keep the good work up.

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AidanAK47

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:34 PM)

Hmmm, my current laptop doesn’t have anything major wrong with it and can last a few months. Like you said it might be good to wait.
Know any good site that will help me keep an eye on things on new laptop affairs? Or else just let me know if a impressive beast comes out.

AidanAK47

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:31 PM)

I was aware that this thing might be heavy but weight isn’t really an issue. Nor is using it around other people as I had no intention of doing so. I need the portabilty in order to keep it on hand when going to and from my parents and my house. Highly doubt I would need it in a place with a lot of people. Chances are I would just chat with people instead or play a DS.
I figured it would be outdated by years end. Really I just need a laptop that will last me a good few years.

Raggers

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:28 PM)

I really need to go now but I can look at this stuff in more detail later. Just be aware that 2015/2016 will see some major changes to hardware and software – DX12 will need next-gen cards for full support most likely, VR will mean they are optimised for low-latency…
There is a lot of new stuff coming, and you will miss out if you buy now.

Raggers

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:24 PM)

I don’t know how long your current solution will last, but I expect there to be serious developments in the next product cycle or two. GPUs will (finally) shrink to the next node, bringing huge power savings and boosting performance significantly. Skylake will come out with some very interesting features, and 3D memory should be highly beneficial for performance.

Raggers

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:20 PM)

Price isn’t really a concern with your budget, but a TOTL gaming laptop has major compromises. I don’t really feel comfortable helping unless you are aware of this – you will unlikely be able to use it in any circumstances where there are other people nearby unless they are all using headphones, you’ll need headphones, and it’ll be very bulky and heavy.

AidanAK47

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:16 PM)

Pretty much anything on steam.

AidanAK47

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:16 PM)

Well go ahead, if price was not a factor what should I go for?

Raggers

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:15 PM)

What kind of games are we talking about?

Raggers

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:15 PM)

Oh, ninja’d.

AidanAK47

(Tuesday, Mar 31. 2015 02:14 PM)

About 2700 euro is the highest I can go at the moment. Though if I wait another month I can go beyond 3000.

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